Swarthmore Declines to Drop Investments in Fossil Fuels

Swarthmore College will not drop fossil fuel stocks from its $1.9 billion endowment, the school’s board of managers announced on Saturday.

The board engaged in “extensive preparation, analysis, and robust discussion and debate” leading up to the decision, Gil Kemp, its chairman, said in a statement. Mr. Kemp said, however, that the board was “fully committed to addressing the threat of climate change” through means other than divestment, and issued a statement on campus sustainability and green investment.

Swarthmore, a prestigious liberal arts college, is widely considered a birthplace of this divestment movement. The college, founded by Quakers in 1864 on a few hundred wooded acres near Philadelphia, has resisted the students’ demands, citing the school’s investment guidelines, which since 1991 have required management for “the best long-term financial results, rather than to pursue other social objectives.”

The divestment movement, patterned along the lines of 1980s activism to force institutions to drop investments in companies with ties to apartheid-era South Africa, has spread to hundreds of institutions, including schools, philanthropies, religious organizations, pension funds and local governments, as well as wealthy individuals. Many universities, including Stanford and Syracuse, have chosen divestment to a degree, while others, like Harvard and Yale, have not.

In September, the Rockefellers, heirs to the Standard Oil fortune, announced that they would eliminate fossil fuels from the family’s $860 million philanthropic organization, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

While the economic impact of divestment on the companies is questionable, those who press for divestment consider their cause a moral one.At Swarthmore, the student push returned this year with a peaceful sit-in, one of many across the nation. About 175 students camped out for 32 days in Parrish Hall, which houses the school’s administrative offices.

Stephen O’Hanlon, a leader of Swarthmore Mountain Justice, the group pushing for divestment, said members were “very disappointed” by the school’s decision, but added that his organization would be back in the fall with further action “to make sure that Swarthmore stands on the right side of history.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: Despite Student Sit-In, Swarthmore Board Declines to Drop Fossil Fuel Investments. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe